


Things are Good

by paradis



Series: Okay [3]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Moving On, Timestamp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-05
Updated: 2012-01-05
Packaged: 2017-10-28 23:19:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/313276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paradis/pseuds/paradis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes it hits Danny, overwhelmingly so: things are good.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things are Good

**Author's Note:**

> So this is - I'm going to assume for all purposes - a timestamp? to my Okay series. It's probably good if you've read the previous two before you read this one.
> 
> It's short, it's a little fluffy, a little angsty.

Sometimes it hits Danny, overwhelmingly so: things are good. It’s taken them a while to get to this point, it’s taken them a while to adjust, but things are _good._ He has Steve and he has Grace and – sure, he’s lost some things, too, lost Rachel and moved away from the majority of his family, but he’s found a new home and a new family, too. And he knows he and Grace - _especially_ Grace – and even Steve will always miss Rachel, but they have memories of her, pictures of her, and on the worst days, they pull them out and look at them together, curled up on the couch.

Grace loves to talk about her.

She’ll finger the locket Steve bought for the _one_ birthday Danny has ever missed – and doesn’t that just sting? – with a few tears in her eyes, and talk about when she was little and Danny and Rachel used to take her down to the Shore for the day, nothing but a picnic basket, a blanket, and an entire bottle of sunscreen in the backseat with them. They would laugh and splash around in the ocean, Danny would build sandcastles with her, and Rachel – Rachel always wore a floppy straw sunhat that never _fully_ kept the sun out of her eyes, so she always ended up shielding the her face with her hand anyways while she stood at the water’s edge, in the same exact red bathing suit, every single time, a perfect grin on her face while she shouted for them not to go too deep.

Danny is always amazed that Grace can remember that, because she was only three and a half, but he guesses when something terrible happens, maybe your best memories start to stand out. He knows that for himself, he’s started to forget all the bad things between him and Rachel. Now he only remembers the way she would smile fondly at him when he would drop Grace off after their weekends and hug her tight on the doorstep. The way she would laugh at his snarky responses and tell him he needed to watch his tongue. The way, on their first date, she spilled wine across the white tablecloth and her mouth opened in a tiny ‘o’ of shock before she burst into laughter and said she never was very good with first dates and could they please have a do-over?

He hardly remembers their screaming fights, the way they threw dishes across the room in anger when Grace was at school, the way she refused to let him touch her in the end. He hardly remembers the way she screamed she hated him the night before she served him with divorce papers. He knows it’s still there, he knows it still hurts; the way burned love is supposed to hurt, but death hurts more. It sends those memories deep below the surface, making them vague. The good memories cover them up and he thinks he likes it better that way anyways. He likes to remember her as a good mother, a good wife, a good person. Not as an enemy.

He thought it would make Steve uncomfortable, talking about Rachel all the time, because not only is it talking about Danny’s dead ex-wife, it’s talking about Grace’s mother, it’s talking about a dead parent and Steve has – Steve has _issues_ , everyone is aware of that. What takes him by surprise is that instead of closing up and disappearing from the room every time Grace pulls out the photo album, Steve will smile and pull her into his lap like she’s not turning eleven soon, help her turn the pages and ask questions about every picture like he hasn’t heard the stories a hundred times before. Danny will sit on the other side of Steve, pointing out little facts about each picture. What surprises him even more is the time when Gracie asks him questions about _Steve’s_ mother, Steve responds.

“Was she pretty?” Grace asks shyly, “Like my mommy?”

Steve is quiet for a long moment, running a finger across a picture of _Danny, Rachel, and Grace; three mo. old,_ before he gives one of those fond smiles that Danny loves, and nods. “Yeah,” Steve says, looking through his eyelashes up at Grace. “She was pretty, Gracie. She was gorgeous. She had blonde hair – like Mary’s. But her eyes – they were the same color as mine. And she always had a really nice tan. She smelled like vanilla, I remember that – she always smelled like vanilla, no matter what. Her hugs were the best, even after I got older and didn’t –“ he chokes off a little, before he continues. Danny rubs a hand up his back, comforting and reminding. “Didn’t really want them as much.”

Grace frowns a little, “Why wouldn’t you want your mommy’s hugs as much, Daddy?” She leans unconsciously into Steve a little further and Danny smiles down at her.

“Sometimes when you get older you decide you’re too cool for hugs, Monkey,” he tells her. Her nose wrinkles, confused, as she shakes her head.

“I’ll never not want your hugs, Danno,” she says defiantly, “Or yours, Dad. You give the best hugs.”

So they talk about Rachel and even Steve’s mom a lot. They talk about everything a lot, and all in all, they’re a pretty open family. The best part is Grace seems to accept it, accept everything. She doesn’t seem to get angry with her mother’s death, or rebellious. Not yet, anyways, and Danny holds his breath that it stays that way.

They holidays are always the worst, Danny knows, but they’ll always be the worst. The holidays and Grace’s birthday. So the best thing Danny can do on those days is drag himself out of bed, look at himself in the mirror and tell himself to be the best dad he can be. On Christmas, he’ll wake Grace up and the first thing he’ll do is get her dressed in her Christmas dress and then he and Steve will get dressed in their nicest clothes and they’ll all head down to the graveyard with the best Hawaiian wildflowers that Grace and Steve spent the day before picking out. They’ll lay them first on Rachel’s headstone. Grace will talk for a long moment with her about what their plans for Christmas are. Then they’ll move onto Steve’s parents grave, where Steve will lay the flowers and Grace and Danny will stand a few feet back, holding hands and watching him carefully. When Steve is finished, Grace will always, always walk forward and set one flower she specially picked out on Steve’s mother’s headstone. Danny doesn’t know why, for sure, but he thinks he gets it and he always lets her. Grace and Steve have a special bond, now, and that’s why Steve’s mother gets a flower from her, too.

For giving Grace Steve.

On Grace’s birthday – the year Danny is there – the best thing he can do is follow Steve’s lead, because he doesn’t really know how it went the year before. Steve tells him that it was rough, but he made sure Grace was surrounded by her family, and Danny knows. That’s what counts. Being surrounded by your family, knowing someone is _always_ there to listen if you want to talk; that’s what counts. So Danny wakes up early on the day of Grace’s birthday and cooks her a big breakfast, sets her present that he bought for her in front of her plate – it’s meant to be opened in front of her, Steve, and Danny himself, not everyone else.

They eat their pancakes and Grace opens her present and loves it – cries, too, which predictably brings a few tears to Danny’s eyes, as well. Steve just looks at them both with a fond, amused smile on his face, gripping Grace tight in his arms. Then she has to go to school – no, birthdays are not an excuse to skip school but yes, both of her fathers promise to wrap work up as early as they can to pick her up from Leilani’s.

When they get her after work they have a quiet birthday bonfire on the beach, Kono, Chin, Malia, and Kamekona their only guests. Grace is happy though, Danny can tell, and that makes the nervous butterflies in his stomach settle. He was worried that she’d break down, start missing her mom and freak out about it – even though Steve swore she hadn’t done so last year.

When they tuck her in that night though, she looks up at Danny with glassy eyes, fingers curling around the edge of her blanket. Danny reminds himself of his promise to be the best damn father he can be, takes a deep breath and sits down next to her. “Monkey?” he asks softly.

“I miss her,” Gracie whispers, leaning into Danny’s chest. Steve leans against the doorjamb and watches them, ready, available at a moment’s notice. “I miss mommy. She always did the best things on my birthday, Danno. Both of you did.”

“I know, baby,” Danny murmurs, kissing her forehead, “I know.”

“Danno?”

“Yeah, Monkey?”

“I’m… glad, I have you and Steve. I’m glad that you don’t mind me talking about mommy all the time. I don’t know what I’d do without you guys. I love you.”

“Danno loves you too, Monkey,” Danny says, choking on his words a little.

He kisses her forehead one last time and pulls her blankets up. He flicks the lights out on the way out the door and Steve wraps his arms around him when he gets in the hallway. And honestly?

Danny is glad, too.

Danny is glad that he has Steve. He’s glad that he’s got Grace. He’s glad that he’s got his team and he’s amazed that he can talk with Grace about her mother without any hatred or anger anymore, just hurt – hurt that she’s gone. Danny’s glad that he’s loved, glad that he’s surrounded by amazing people.

They’ll always have a long road ahead of them; they’ll always run into obstacles. Grace will always miss her mother, and there will come times when Danny’s not sure what the _hell_ he needs to say or do with his beautiful, precious, amazing, and wonderful daughter. But what counts is that they’ve got each other.

And he’s glad.

Things are good.


End file.
